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MAKING IT WORK
Seattle City Councilmember Richard Conlin
The purpose of this newsletter is to provide information, inspire involvement, and make things work in this great city.
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December 29, 2005, Volume VII, Issue 12
CONTENTS
GREEN-DUWAMISH SALMON PROTECTION PLAN
On Monday, December 5, the City Council unanimously endorsed the Salmon Recovery Plan for the Green-Duwamish Watershed (Water Resource Inventory Area 9, abbreviated as WRIA 9). The Duwamish River in Seattle is a Superfund Site with significant industrial contamination, but is the estuary for a 664 square mile watershed that begins with pristine habitat in the lower Cascades and supports a dozen salmon runs, including between 2,450 and 11,500 endangered Chinook salmon annually. I have served for the last four years as the Seattle representative on the Forum and Steering Committee charged with creating a recovery plan for Chinook in the Green-Duwamish.
The plan proposes 57 salmon habitat protection projects, 77 capital improvement projects, policies directing future governmental actions, and programs to encourage public involvement, with the goal of restoring the Chinook run to a level of 27,000 spawning adults.
The plan is based on extensive assessments of the conditions that exist in our waterways and scientific study of what salmon need to recover their former abundance in the light of the more than 600,000 humans who now inhabit this watershed, a number which will grow in future years. The plan's actions have an estimated cost of $200 to $400 million over a twenty year period, which will benefit not only the Chinook runs, but the overall health of the ecosystems in the watershed. By comparison, the goods and services provided by the Green-Duwamish ecosystems are valued at between $2 and $6 billion annually.
WRIA 9 includes the Green/Duwamish River watershed and small streams flowing into Puget Sound. The 50-year plan details initiatives to protect good habitat through the purchase-or easement-of land, through incentives and/or information for private property owners, and through capital projects that will improve critical areas currently degraded. The plan calls for reconnecting channels to provide a refuge for fish along with adding spawning gravel and large tree trunks to river channels to enhance habitat.
Policies are also laid out in the plan encouraging habitat creation and clean up, as well as programs, such as shoreline stewardship workshops, water conservation incentives, yard care and better carwash practices that encourage citizen involvement.
Seattle is the tenth city in the watershed to ratify the plan, along with King County. Seattle's action puts the plan into effect, achieving the required threshold of having approval by the County and cities representing at least 70% of the population of the watershed. The plan now goes forward for national review as part of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Plan. Both the overall Puget Sound plan and each specific watershed plan will be published in the Federal Register by NOAA Fisheries. Once the federal government has accepted the plan as meeting the region's requirements under the Endangered Species Act, full implementation can move forward, although many projects and programs are already underway as part of the region's early implementation strategy.
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ALCOHOL IMPACT AREA
On Monday, December 12, the Council adopted legislation formally requesting the Washington Liquor Control Board to restrict the hours and types of alcohol products that can be sold in a wide area of the city, including the downtown, Capitol Hill, the University District, and parts of the Central Area. The Alcohol Impact Area (AIA), which is already implemented in Pioneer Square, is designed to reduce access to the types of alcohol most favored by people who suffer from Chronic Public Inebriety (CPI). The goal is to both enhance livability and public safety by reducing the concentrations of people with CPI on the street, and to move those suffering from this serious health affliction towards seeking treatment by reducing their access to the drug.
When the AIA was initially proposed, I was skeptical about it, fearing that it was only going to result in harassing people with limited ability to cope and in dispersing the problem rather than addressing it. However, I changed my perspective after learning about the epidemiology of CPI and reviewing studies demonstrating that limiting access both breaks up group support for alcohol consumption and sharing of resources and leads more sufferers to seek treatment. The Tacoma AIA has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of Emergency Medical Service calls for persons who collapse as a result of this disease.
I concluded that AIA's, coupled with more and better treatment programs, can be successful in saving the lives and health of those who cannot be compelled to seek treatment ('public drunkenness' is not a criminal act under Washington law, so people with CPI have to enter treatment programs voluntarily). The City and County have expanded treatment facilities and programs, and plan to continue to do so. This legislation is not a total solution to this important public health problem, but it is a step towards saving people's health and lives, as well as to improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods.
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NEIGHBORHOOD GROCERY STORES
On Monday, December 12, the Council adopted a zoning amendment permitting the expansion of grocery stores to 23,000 square feet in approximately six neighborhood commercial areas of Seattle, relatively large NC-1 zones that are more than a third of a mile from an existing major grocery store. The Council vote was 6 to 3, with Councilmembers Rasmussen, Della, and Licata voting against the bill.
The intent of the legislation is to permit the small stores located in these areas to be competitive enough to serve their immediate communities and therefore be able to stay in business while reducing the need for people to drive longer distances to purchase groceries. 23,000 square feet is about half as large as the typical chain grocery store currently being built, but is large enough that companies like Thriftway and Puget Consumer's Cooperative (PCC) can maintain their market shares. In the next most intensive zone, NC-2, grocery stores are permitted to be as large as 50,000 square feet while other retail uses are limited to 15,000 square feet, so the 10,000 square feet limitation for grocery stores in the current NC-1 zones is inconsistently small.
This legislation was generally supported in the neighborhood where a development proposal first prompted consideration of a zoning change, the area around the Seward Park PCC. PCC is planning a project to expand the store in conjunction with a mixed use development. However, there were significant concerns raised as to whether this was an appropriate legislative direction, given that it was prompted by a single project, and whether there might be untoward impacts on other affected neighborhoods.
The Council tried to walk a fine line to meet both of those objections, by writing the legislation to apply generally only to those neighborhoods where these larger stores might be welcome. There is a narrow line between this practice and 'spot zoning,' although I believe that the Council stayed just on the right side of that line. By drawing the exception so narrowly, the legislation excludes almost all of the neighborhoods where there was opposition to larger stores.
Most land use legislation does not involve clear choices between 'right' and 'wrong,' but reflects a compromise that as far as possible addresses the needs of all parties. That is a reasonable standard that this legislation does meet.
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LEGISLATIVE AGENDA
On Monday, December 12, the Council approved the City's legislative agenda for the 2006 session of the state legislature. The Council adopted four top priorities:
- Increased funding for education.
- Funding for local transportation needs and restructuring of transportation governance.
- Incentives, tools, and increased funding for affordable housing.
- Expansion of anti-discrimination laws to include sexual orientation and either repealing the statewide restrictions on
affirmative action or allowing local jurisdictions to choose to adopt affirmative action for their areas.
Following several weeks of discussion regarding our legislative agenda, the Council also adopted a series of legislative
objectives. The only change made on the floor was to remove a session objective that committed the City to oppose
legislation that would strengthen the public disclosure law. Councilmember Licata proposed, and I supported, striking this
language, and the Council agreed with only Councilmember Drago in opposition.
The Council's transportation objectives include:
- Funding to maintain and improve streets and bridges at the local level.
- Modifying the proposed regional transportation funding package to give greater priority to transit and to give city
officials a voice on the planning and governing board.
- Reauthorizing and improving Commute Trip Reduction programs.
- Creating a new governance structure for transportation in the Central Puget Sound region.
- Dissolving the monorail project and liquidating its debts.
In 2005, the three King County transportation planning forums, representing Seattle and the suburban cities, adopted
a common legislative agenda for the first time. As Co-Chair of the Seashore Transportation Forum, I played a major role
in bringing this about. City representatives who were involved in developing and lobbying on the common agenda believe
that our work was important in persuading the Legislature to approve the 2005 Transportation Improvement Program and the
taxes to fund it. Our conviction that the people of King County and the state would be behind a coherent transportation
strategy was vindicated when the electorate rejected Initiative 912, which would have crippled our efforts to implement
transportation improvements by repealing the gas tax that is the major source of funding.
The subareas have again agreed on a common platform for 2006, consisting of three points:
- Funding for local transportation maintenance.
- Modifying the proposed regional transportation funding package.
- Reauthorizing and improving Commute Trip Reduction programs.
Seattle will thus again be in full partnership with our suburban counterparts in working with the legislature on a
consistent set of transportation priorities.
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QUOTE
"The cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy."
-- John Dewey
DEEP THOUGHT:
"There is one God, and the earth is his prophet.
The beauty of things is the face of God: worship it; Give your hearts to it; labor to be like it."
-- Robinson Jeffers, "The Double Ax"
Citizen participation and engagement are critical for maintaining democracy -- fostering it is a key task of elected officials. It's my hope that this newsletter will inform you about issues, inspire you to get involved, and that together we can make things work better in this great city. Please send me your feedback, so we can keep things lively, interesting, and useful. And please forward it along to friends who might be interested. You can get more information or send me feedback through the City Council website at http://cityofseattle.net/council/
Richard Conlin
Your Seattle City Councilmember
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